Katana's Sheath
by Dark Hope Assassin
Summary: As a result of an ill conceived plan, Hinata ends up captive of the Sand and befriends its tailed beast vessel. The boy's proven to be mentally unstable and dangerous, but every life taking sword needs a sheath. How long will she be up for the post?
1. Not Part of the Plan

_For the first time in a long while, I am actually quite pleased with the outcome of my writing._

_What I have planned for this story is rather dark and heavy, so I don't expect you to actually like it much. But still I think you should give it a try and see for yourself if our tastes match._

_This is strictly a Gaara/Hinata story, so if you don't like the couple, I can't be held responsible for not **warning** you beforehand. And yet I think that if you give me a chance, I just might make a shipper out of you._

_So, without further ado, I bring to you:_

* * *

_**Katana's Sheath**_

_Chapter One: Not Part of the Plan_

The Sand had been planning this for months, despite the fact that they had a non-aggression pact with the Leaf. They wanted—_needed_—the power of a bloodline limit since their village had none of its own. The wars were becoming harder to fight every day; the shinobi of the Sand could barely fare for themselves, what was left for protecting a whole village?

To top it off, what had been thought as the village's trump card, the demon of the desert, Shukaku, sealed into the body of the Fourth Kazekage's newborn son, came out to be one of the greatest mistakes they'd ever made. Instead of helping the village, the demon vessel had proved in numerous tests to suffer from mental instability caused by the lack of sleep that accompanied being Shukaku's container. The little brat had absolutely no talent at manipulating the sand that protected him regardless of his will. And thus, the Sand was left once more at a disadvantage against the neighbouring shinobi villages with little fire power, no bloodline limits and no tailed demon as its protection.

So the elders came up with a brilliant cunning plan of kidnapping the youngest of the oldest noble family in their neighbour village, the Hyuuga family. A small child wouldn't put up much of a fight and wouldn't cause as much racket as an adult would when ambushed. They'd swoop in for the kill hours after midnight, when everyone was surely fast asleep. The cat was definitely in the bag.

Imagine the kidnappers' surprise when they found the youngest Hyuuga awake at three in morning, jumping noiselessly around the spacious room with more grace than was usually found in a five year old little girl. As if she hadn't proved them wrong enough already, when she felt the presence of a stranger in the room, she instantly fell into her Gentle Fist stance, even though her knees and arms were shaking and her posture shabby as hell. She fought bravely and injured one of her would-be kidnappers but in the end was overpowered three to one. Miraculously enough, she barely made a sound during the furious exchange and even when she was struck down, she just whispered something among the lines of "I'm sorry I failed you, father" until her tiny lids slid shut over her opalescent eyes.

So, with slight hitches, the plan of the Sand proved to be a success as they now had the girl in custody and the elders were gathered in a meeting to decide how to make use of her.

The decision they arrived at with an almost absolute majority was to use her as a guinea pig to find how the fearsome bloodline, the Byakugan eyes, worked. They didn't need her breathing for the completion of such a task.

* * *

The navy haired little girl was thrown in a windowless room with absolutely no light source. She could navigate around in the dark in this strange place she'd never been before and she was so scared she was trembling all over. She could almost hear the reproachful voice of her father in the back of her mind but she was unable to please it as she was frightened beyond belief.

Who were these people that had taken her? What did they want to do with her? Had she been a bad girl? Was this her punishment for not being good? She wanted to go home to her dad, in his securing embrace. Her parent had told her never to let her guard down and she hadn't—she'd fought the best she could but it hadn't sufficed.

She curled her knees up and wrapper her chubby little arms around them. Sniffles soon bounced off the dreary walls, the only indication that the girl was in despair. She wanted to go home, she wanted to go home! Why were they being so mean to her? She just wanted to be home!

"_Stop whining, Hinata!_" She almost jumped at the remembrance from a week ago. "_If you're a Hyuuga, you must learn to protect yourself as there will be many people that will want the blood that runs through your veins. Instead of whimpering like a pampered child, strike back like a real Hyuuga! Don't disappoint me!_"

She was the descendant of a genius clan, a family in which many great shinobi were born. At her age, people became Chuunins and Jounins. And what did she do? Cry all day long, a coward that was nothing but a disappointment to her only living parent. Her father often told her that her mother thought her little girl would make a great clan leader when she was older and the whole main family believed that. _She_ believed it too. They all trusted in her and she was failing them, again. Would she ever be able to meet anyone's expectations?

Despite her timid nature and despite the fear that had a death grip on her heart Hinata pushed herself up and rubbed her tears roughly away with the back of her tiny fist. She was a Hyuuga and she had to make her family proud! She couldn't fail them! No matter how scared she was, how much she just wanted to crawl into a hole and die, the force that drove her onward—the fear of seeing her father's scornful face—was stronger than any other feeling she had. Being a shinobi of her status and name, she had to be more mature than most. Now was the time to show everyone that she was worth more than they gave her credit for!

She fumbled around in the dark for the door to the premise, her shaky legs proving to be little support in the case. Cold droplets of sweat were trickling down her face but she kept searching. She had to make her daddy proud…!

She almost jumped back at the feel of the hard metal knob. Jaw quivering with fear and uncertainty, she made a few seals and activated her Byakugan. She was really bad at manipulating her bloodline limit but she had the basic knowledge needed to get her out of this situation. She could clearly see the lock's mechanism with her chakra enhanced eyes now. All that was left was apply some more of her chakra to it so it would unlock.

The tiny palm hovered over the knob and she closed her eyes in concentration. In order to mold chakra, she recalled her father's lecture, she needed to have a clear mind, unaffected by any emotion. As you could imagine, that was a hard task for a child to perform but she still tried hard. When she was starting to lose her cool, a soft click filled her oversensitive ears and caused a swell of pride to rise in her small chest. She'd done it! She'd _done_ it!

Once she was done congratulating herself on her small success, she tiptoed out of the room, looking cautiously around with her Byakugan for any of her assailants only to find the hall mercifully empty. Breathing a sigh of relief, she made her way for the closest exit her chakra enhanced eyes could detect.

However, as she passed by a room that had the door open a crack, she felt a sharp stab in the back of her neck and the hairs there prickled to life. It was a sort of a tickle—the teasing kind—that was a completely new sensation to her. She stopped mid-stride and turned her head to look at the closed door. Concentrating on what lay beyond it, she found it to be a small boy playing with a mountain of toys.

Child-like envy enveloped her being as she watched him but something was off. He had many toys but it seemed no one but him played with them. _How lucky_, she thought jealously. _He has them all to himself_.

Looking closer at him, she realized that it was probably him that had made her stop dead in her tracks. There was something odd about him. There was no way he was a shinobi—shinobi had no time to play with toys, her father had told her many times, and he seemed like a pampered child—too much of one to be considered a ninja. So how was it possible that the chakra he had was way different than all the non-shinobi maids Hinata had seen at the Hyuuga mansion?

Overcome by her infantile need to explore the mysteries of the world more thoroughly, she pushed the door open and it creaked malevolently, alarming the little boy beyond it of her entry.

Deactivating her Byakugan had been the first thing she did before encountering him because the popping veins around her eyes were something that scared the daylights out of her so she was sure he'd probably feel the same way, probably never having been face to face with a user of this technique. She was met with the clearest pair of marine orbs she'd ever seen when the red haired boy fixed her with his intense intelligent gaze.

Her unnatural confidence from a moment ago betraying her, she felt suddenly self-conscious and shyly stepped back toward the door when he just looked at her.

"H-h-hello," she muttered quietly, her head hung low in a vain attempt to hide from him behind the door.

He stared at her for the longest time before offering a meek "Hello," of his own.

"Are y-you… Are you p-playing a-alone?" Again, with the unease-begetting staring of his. She wanted to run and hide from him and in the same time something compelled her to keep asking her questions stubbornly.

"Yes," was his short reply before he turned back to the cubes he was piling up like a sky-scraper that the Sand didn't have to offer in its design.

"Y-you d-don't like to-to-to sh-share y-your t-toys with a-a-anyone?" There was something really sad about this boy's complexion and she felt childish empathy for him.

"No." He blinked a few times while he reached for another cube. "No one wants to play with me."

All her previous envy of the boy's treasure room forgotten, Hinata felt angry at everyone who spurned this little guy. It was really mean to treat someone like that—she knew that first-hand. It was unfair to be treated like an outcast. It was terrible to have to play alone because it wasn't as fun as playing together with other kids.

It was amazing how easily a young mind could be derailed from one course of action to a completely different and Hinata was a great proof of that. She had some still poorly developed self-defense instincts and thus was unaware of the dangers of her prolonged staying in the building where her attackers had taken her to. But presented with a room full of toys—things she couldn't usually allow herself to have fun with as her every day schedule was too busy with training sessions with her father to leave her any room for nonsensical things as playing—and a lone boy who could use some company, she couldn't resist the urge to have some fun for once. Her daddy didn't need to know. She'd go back to him right away anyway—as soon as she was content with her work in the Toy Paradise, of course.

"Th-then… C-c-can I… p-play w-with y-y-you?" Her stutter intensified when she was nervous and Kami knew she was very shy under the boy's soul-searing gaze. But with willpower that surprised even her, she stood, unwavering, staring back—while she wasn't looking at her feet, of course.

The adorable blue-green childish orbs with unsettling black rims widened at her query.

"You'd play with me?" He sounded shell-shocked, as if no one had ever offered such a natural thing before. Her bright white eyes lifted to catch a glimpse at him again. He was such a cute boy—why wouldn't anyone want to play with him?

"I-if y-y-you… w-w-want me t-t-to."

She watched as he slowly nodded and she made her way towards him with tentative small steps, almost falling over herself a few times but miraculously managing to maintain balance every time, if even just barely.

She sat a bit too far from him, still just as uneasy around anyone she didn't know well but just as determined to be some good company. So she asked the most obvious thing she could think of with her simple young mind.

"W-what are y-you b-building?"

"A sky-scraper," he answered eloquently as per usual. The word confused her.

"Wh-what's a sky-sc-scaper?" The foreign word rolled oddly off her tongue and she grimaced slightly at it.

"Sky-scraper," he corrected her bleakly. "And obviously, it looks like this." He noted after three more floors to his work of art that she wasn't doing anything—just standing there, looking at the stack of toys like she'd never seen anything quite as mystifying as them before. "You're not playing," he pointed out dead on.

"I-I don't k-know h-how i-it should l-look l-like," she explained, looking at the floor guiltily. He snorted slightly at her reasoning.

"You don't need to make something like it should be. Do it how you want to. No one's going to stop you anyway."

This information was new. His freedom of mind made her envy him all over again. He had this many toys and no one told him what he should do. She, on the other hand, had always been forced to think of her clan first and then of herself. It was too selfish to be otherwise. A future head had to put her responsibilities for the family before her own well-being—it was just another part of being the leader the greatest family in Konoha.

So this was completely new experience to her—having the freedom to decide something on her own and not be judged for the outcome. She'd never had the chance to be creative—in life or training. She had to learn to cook, clean and wash as a kunoichi; she had to use strictly and foremost the Gentle Fist style and all the techniques of the Hyuuga-style because she was a Hyuuga and she had to set and example. Slacking was not tolerated and she had to exceed her limits with her skill in fighting every time. She couldn't use any other techniques when fighting her father because the point was to improve her Gentle Fist. She couldn't be creative because creativity did not suit the patriarchy that was the Noble House of Hyuuga.

She grabbed a few cubes with more vigour than she'd shown him thus far and surprised him a bit. In no time, she had a little house by a waterfall.

"What is it?" Her companion asked and she looked at him as if he'd just sprouted a hand from his ear that was currently waving at her gaily. After she explained what she thought was obvious, he raised an inexistent eye brow. "How girly of you," he remarked dryly. She shifted her eyes to the soft carpeted floor in dejection.

"I-I-I'm s-sorry. B-b-but I a-am a g-girl a-after all." He nodded in childish thoughtfulness at that and continued his own work diligently. Something occurred to her all of a sudden. "C-c-can I a-ask y-your name?"

"There aren't many things you could ask a name to do." She blushed beet red for some unfathomable reason for him.

"I-I j-just w-wanted t-to know w-what i-it is… i-if y-you w-wouldn't mind t-telling me?"

He looked oddly at her and she started fidgeting under his scrutiny but he turned a blind eye to that. Instead, he focused on the fact that she obviously had no idea who he was. Was that why she was so nice to him? Was that why she wanted to play with him? Was she from a different village or something? He couldn't come up with any other explanation for her lack of blatant fear for him, even though she was constantly stuttering and fretting in his presence. Was she a new playmate that his father had awarded him with? Was she his upcoming birthday gift from Yashamaru? Did she want to actually be his friend, just like all those kids at the Academy were befriended?

The thought made something warm in his chest stir.

"Gaara," he introduced himself curtly. "What's yours?" He'd heard it was normal to ask for others' names as well. Something about knowing how to call each other later on.

The girl blushed an even deeper shade of crimson and he wondered briefly if she was sick or something. He couldn't possibly know because he never got sick or injured.

"I-I-I'm H-Hinata." She bowed frantically. "N-nice t-to m-m-meet y-y-you, G-G-Gaara-kun!" When she looked up at him with her innocent pearly eyes he blinked back and gave her a small nod. She smiled brightly at him.

She was odd in many ways and definitely different than everyone he'd ever come across—not that those were many in the first place—but he could actually find himself liking the girl—just a tiny bit though. He had no idea who sent her to him or why she wasn't afraid of him and didn't know him from others' tales, but he didn't care. He finally had someone to play with and—while he couldn't quite put his finger on it—he was quite certain that the feeling that was swirling in his young chest was what normal people called "happiness".

"This is boring, let's play something else." He said and turned away from his building quickly, rummaging through the stack of toys under the firm gaze of his new playmate.

"B-b-but, b-b-but…!" she protested weakly, unable to string a sentence together in her haste to get the words out of her mouth.

Neither had the chance to finish what they were doing though, as the door slammed open to reveal a bunch of agitated shinobi who scanned the room quickly only to have their eyes fall on the startled little girl and the now slightly annoyed boy behind her.

"There she is, Yuura-sama!" one of the henchmen shouted. "She's in Gaara-sama's room!"

"What do you want?" the boy demanded as the girl slowly stepped back closer to him. She didn't know if she could trust him and she was dead certain that he was just a normal boy, thus incapable of doing anything to stop those people if they wanted to do her harm even though they referred to him with a honorific, but she still crawled to hide behind his back, shaking with fear as she recognized her kidnappers' faces among the small crowd gathering in the once placid room.

"I still can't believe she made her way out of prison! I'm quite sure I locked up really well!"

"Your incompetence shall be punished, but later, Baki." The man called Yuura said as he stepped up closer to the Hyuuga who shrunk back further behind Gaara's tiny frame that provided little to no security. "Right now we have a pest to deal with."

"Didn't you hear what I said?" Gaara snarled in a way that was a bit too ferocious to suit a five year old boy. Even without her Byakugan activated, Hinata started feeling that something bad was about to happen. "What do you want here? Begone, all of you!"

"You are obstructing the capture of an escaped prisoner, Gaara-sama," Yuura told him condescendingly as he closed in on the kids. "Your father will be greatly displeased with you when he hears of this."

"L-l-l-let m-m-me g-g-g-go!" Hinata shrieked in distress. "I d-d-don't w-w-want t-t-to g-g-go b-b-back in t-t-the d-d-dark! L-l-let g-g-go!" She wailed and arched in the grip of the large man and hit him with all her might but it served her no good. They were carrying her away and there was nothing anyone could do to help her now. _Father, save me! I'm scared! I'm scared, father! Help me!_ She pled mentally but no one would be able to hear her cries of desperation, no one would be able to save her now because she was alone again, completely at the mercy of these evil men.

"_Let Hinata go, you bastards!_" Heads turned at the source of the scream and it took the victim a while to realize that the gruesomely distorted double-layered voice had come from none other than the now furious Gaara, around whom a whirlwind of sand was forming, holding promise of vicious torture ahead if his will was not obeyed.

Before she realized it, she was roughly ripped from her captor's arms and thrown ruthlessly on the ground behind Gaara. She felt her whole body hurt all over from the impact but it wasn't a new sensation to her—she'd suffered worse damage in her sparring sessions with her father.

It took her a small while to get her wits together again but when she pushed herself up into a sitting position on the floor, she was looking at the moving sand snaking around the invaders' arms and legs in a grip that looked firmer than vice. They were screaming in pure anguish and Gaara's back and shoulders—the only thing she could see of him—were stiff and slightly bent in a rather unnerving way.

"I'll make you pay for upsetting me. I'll make you pay for hurting Hinata. I'll make you feel sorry you were born!" He thundered in a voice far too mature to be his own.

He scared her now. He really scared her. She couldn't pry her eyes away from the grotesque picture in front of her though. Blood was mixing with the chakra-infused sand as he crushed limbs and took lives. Her Byakugan activated on what seemed its own accord and she saw the traces of an awry chakra in the sand. It felt primal, furious and it hurt to look at. It was anything but human. It was all too much. It made her heart throb, listening to the pleas for mercy and the pained sobs of grown men who knew they were about to die. She couldn't bear with it any longer.

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" she yelled atop her lungs, for once the stutter in her voice gone without a trace. "Don't do this anymore, I can't take it! Stop!" she begged and pled, desperate to stop this massacre.

To the surprise of everyone present—even to himself—Gaara did as she demanded unrepiningly, even though he had no conscious hold on the sand. It dissipated, letting go of its prisoners who took the incentive to disappear. No one wanted to face the boy's wrath. It was clear now that things had gone awfully wrong. The Kazekage's son shouldn't have become attached to her. He shouldn't have defended her because now there was no one he'd let them do as they pleased with her. He was the strongest being in the village—stronger than his father himself—and no one could go against his wishes.

Having Shukaku's vessel become attached to their Hyuuga hostage was _not_ part of the elders' brilliant plan.

Those who could still use their extremities took the more heavily wounded ones away to inform the higher-ups of the change in the situation so they could reform the plan to accommodate to the new circumstances, leaving the two younglings on their own again.

Once all of the damned shinobi were gone, Gaara turned around with a completely collected expression on his face to his new friend as if he wasn't just about to murder in cold blood an entire team of Jounins. He stepped closer to and—thankfully for her, for she wasn't sure how he'd react if she had flinched back from his closeness—she was a in a complete stupor, unable to move her eyes away from the bloody stains on the carpet by the entrance.

He crouched in front of her and looked her directly in the eye with something akin to insanity but someone as young as Hinata could not place such an emotion correctly. So instead she just shifted her shocked gaze to him, her whole small figure trembling in fear.

"It's all right now, Hinata." He assured her in that cool, calm voice he'd talked to her in the beginning, making her unease settle down somewhat and partially forget that he had been what she was supposed to be afraid of most. "I won't let them hurt you anymore. I promise."

And for some odd reason, she believed him. She trusted him so fully and completely that it made her cry.

Their friendship was not part of the traitorous plan of the sand but it definitely made two lone souls a bit more complete than they had ever been.

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_Review if you'd like to. I'd be thankful for the feedback and it could make me write more sooner, if you want me to, because otherwise I might be buried with schoolwork._

_Thanks for your attention._


	2. A Kind of Paradise in a Flower’s Bloom

_Top __AN: After much stumbling over my words, misgivings and contemplation, I decided to split this chapter in two, as was originally planned. I'm sorry that we'll have to drag out a bit the whole "children" episode, but since I have no clue whether you like that or not, there's nothing I can do with my low productivity at current time than to reduce the size of the chapter in order to decrease your wait for an update. I can only hope that this way, everyone will be happy. You tell me if I'm right after reading, eh?_

_Chapter title courtesy of the lyrics from a positively awesome anime's sound track—Wolf's Rain. The song proved to be great inspiration and—since I had no clue what kind of a title to pick not to sound _too_ corny—I decided it sounded good for this story, rather appropriate for the developments of the chapter. But I'll let you be the judge of that._

* * *

_Chapter Two:__ A Kind of Paradise in a Flower's Bloom_

The incessant weeps and oft sobs were the only sounds coming from the Fourth's offspring's room for a long while.

Being a discarded child—hated, cursed, looked down upon and sneered at from any and everyone in his home village—Gaara had no idea how to deal with the situation he had on his hands, especially with his next to nonexistent people skills. And namely, he had no idea what to say, what to do, to make this girl stop crying.

He hadn't known her for long—hell, they hadn't even been able to play together decently!—but something about her wordless anguish made a weird feeling in his gut coil and his insides constrict painfully. He didn't know what having a friend was like for he had never had one in his entire life; he had no experience at compassion or offering any kind of comfort and had never cared enough to look how other—_normal_—people dealt with their day-to-day relations with others so he was left with the nagging feeling of being completely and utterly helpless, useless, a dead weight that he'd always been—to his father, to his siblings, to his peers and to his village in general; and now to her as well.

It made him angry—puzzlingly so—that she wouldn't stop crying even after the ordeal was long over. That she was so damn inconsiderate not to think of how awkward she made him feel with her constant hiccupping and sniffling. How could she be so selfish? The skin over his eyes narrowed over the bright marine orbs.

"Are you injured?" he asked suddenly, in an attempt to find the source of her distress and hoping he'd be able to quell it. Regardless of his soothing, calm tone and the fact that there was no longer any danger looming over them, she didn't reply immediately. He scowled firmly at that in a way that only a child far too mature for his age could manage.

"N-n-n-n…n-no," she said finally, her speech shakier than ever before in her fit. Her head would start hurting soon from all the crying and whining but she didn't care. She was so overwhelmed—she just wanted to be _home_ at once – was it _that_ much to ask for? She wanted to be on familiar ground again, with familiar faces again and—as much as she liked Gaara-kun and was thankful to him for saving her when she thought all was lost—she wanted to leave there as soon as possible and never look back at this place that the remembrance of would leave her a scar for life.

"Why are you crying then?" he demanded, this time with more edge to his voice than was absolutely necessary. He couldn't understand why she couldn't calm down, couldn't get a grip on her emotions because it was shameful for a shinobi to show weakness and their tears to anyone—friend or foe. "Stop," he commanded, his irritation with her inadequate behaviour getting the better of his intestine-warming feelings for her.

"I-I-I… I c-c-can't!" If she was capable of wailing in despair, she didn't show it, but the urgency in her voice was enough to convey the feelings just as well as a shriek of utter desperation would have. "I w-w-was j-j-just…" She hiccupped again, "S-s-so _scared_!" She began rocking back and forth, her small arms wrapped tightly around her knees in a vain attempt to calm her down—it failed spectacularly and if it managed anything, it made her even more apprehensive than before. "I-I-I w-w-w-was s-s-s-so a-a-afraid they'd h-h-h-hurt us! I'm s-s-so af-afraid! I w-want t-to go to m-m-my daddy! I w-want my d-daddy! I want my daddy here!"

By the time she was in what could be best described as hysterics and she was bringing Gaara along with her for the ride as the boy had no idea how to reply to her quite whimsical—and obviously impossible to meet—demand of her father figure's presence. What do you say to a girl that is hyperventilating, sobbing and crying rivers at the same time? There weren't many things that sprang to mind.

Grimacing in agony as her grief wrenched at his little heart, Gaara put two chubby palms over his small pale ears and turned his face away from her, unable to watch her pathetic tantrum anymore. He wanted to yell at her to stop her whining, that she wasn't accomplishing anything but getting both of them a headache but figured that she was probably too far gone at that point to listen to him at all.

That's when he saw his savior.

If his facial muscles had been capable of it, they would have stretched into a wide grin.

Oblivious to the boy's actions and fussing around the room in all the subtlety only a tailed beast vessel could pull, Hinata kept sobbing and trembling uncontrollably all over. She was ashamed of herself and so anxious and relieved at the same time.

She was ashamed that she was being so weak and petty in front of someone who could have been a potential friend, someone who had protected her and promised to continue doing so in the future. She was ashamed of her incompetence and annoyed at her uselessness. She had made Gaara-kun say a bad word—the taboo for someone of such superior breeding "b" word—and her incapability at protecting herself had caused him to hurt people of his own village, surely respectable shinobi who did as they were told who weren't at fault for kidnapping her—they had maybe even done so on her father's request, to test her strength and fighting skill. She'd failed her father, failed herself and failed Gaara as well, soiled his creamy white hands, small and innocent just like any child's, with the blood of his kin.

She was anxious and strained because she didn't want to spend another second in this village full of malevolent people who wanted to hurt her for no apparent reason anymore. She couldn't stand them, she couldn't stand her own uselessness, couldn't stand it all! She wanted to go home, back to her room and her bed where she could curl into a ball and cry all her fears away, bottle away all the terrible memories in the back of her mind where she would never see them again, where she would be safe and sound beyond the walls of the Hyuuga mansion where she was convinced was the most secure place in the entire world. She just wanted to be home again, in her father's securing embrace again. Why couldn't she? Why wouldn't they let her? Was she that terrible of a girl not to take any pity upon her in the pathetic state she was in?

Before she could lose any more of her dignity to her self-bashing thoughts, something soft and fuzzy was shoved in her face, pulling her out of the world of pain that she was locking herself inside. Her blotchy reddened face was revealed as she studied the object and found it to be a stuffed bear—the cutest stuffed bear she had ever laid eyes upon, she decided immediately in her distressed mindset.

Her opalescent gaze traveled further up the outstretched pale arm that was offering the toy to rest on a frowning young face of boy. She blinked adorably a few times to clear her vision of another onslaught of tears, suddenly more interested in his intentions rather than her personal drama.

"I'll give you my bear for tonight," he began and her eyes widened in disbelief. He was giving her a present while she was demonstrating how unworthy of one she actually was? "Don't get any weird ideas though—I'm just lending. So you stop crying. Tomorrow you'll have to give it back." The joy in her eyes dimmed somewhat and that sent a pang of _something_—was that how guilt felt?—washing over all of Gaara's insides. "But for tonight, he's all yours." She took the proffered bear tentatively, with shaking fingers and hugged it to her chest. "He's always there for me when I have a hard time. He'll help you calm down as well."

But it wasn't the comfort that hugging an inanimate stuffed bear provided that calmed her crying. The feeling of relief that she felt earlier had seized control of all other emotions, of all her fears and uncertainties. She was once again, more than ever, glad that Gaara-kun was by her side through it all. She was sure she was a real pain when she was whining but she couldn't help it. Her father had probably betrayed her in his intent to make her that much stronger, he was still nowhere in sight and she couldn't feel a familiar chakra signature in a kilometer radius with her Byakugan, the scenery outside was weird and completely unlike Konoha whatsoever and there was that much more to cry over.

And through it all, he hadn't left her on her own, to wallow in her sorrow endlessly. He even lent her his favourite—she could tell by how dirty it was from being carried around all over the place—toy so she would calm herself. He was such a sweet boy. She couldn't possibly imagine why he had no one to play with, the incident from before completely forgotten in her linear thinking style.

And as the offering of a favourite toy was an unspoken and unwritten rule for little children to confess that they trusted you completely, Hinata lifted her head, eyes still puffy and red from her crying but her smile as brilliant as ever. The accursed thing in Gaara's little chest constricted again yet this time it wasn't in that painful way from the time she was crying her eyes out. It was a teasing—almost itchy—sort of clench that made it a little harder to breathe.

"Thank you, Gaara-kun!"

She said it without stuttering, with that bright grin on her wonderful childish features. And she was smiling all for him, all because of him. He had never made anyone smile before. He found the feeling awfully addictive. He wanted to see more of her smile, feel the radiance of her aura even brighter.

He had no idea why those goons of his father's had kidnapped her, or where they had kidnapped her from, but he didn't want her to return wherever she was coming from. It was selfish, cruel and perhaps very inconsiderate since she was so displeased with staying in Suna, but he didn't care about her feelings in the matter. He could easily make those feelings change, right? He'd find ways to make her forget about her home, he'd make her see that she was better off living there, in that room, in that building and that village, where he was. He had a friend for once in his life and he was unwilling to give her away to anyone—not to her family, not to her other friends, not to her fellow villagers. He'd be all the protection she needed from that father she always whined about—the thought made some darker emotion in him stir; it was what we all call jealousy that Gaara had no previous first-hand experience with—and show her all the devotion of a doting family; he'd give her anything she wanted and needed; he'd make her smile for him forever.

Looking at her amicable grin made it almost impossible not to grin back. That is why he looked away, self-conscious.

"Just for tonight though," he muttered in an attempt to bring the torrent of unfamiliar before that day feelings under his control.

But how much willpower could a boy of five possess? It was a losing battle.

Fortunately, it was a battle he didn't mind losing.

* * *

Being Kazekage wasn't really as great as everyone made it out to be. 

One rarely ever engaged in battle anymore for fear of "making the village look weak to other countries and thus endangering its people" but that suited the Fourth Kazekage of the Sand perfectly well. He was more of strategist and tactician, a well-endowed manipulator that preferred to create the plots and let others do the dirty field work while he drank his green tea peacefully in his Kazekage Dome. He was just that kind of person—a man of silent but steadfast determination and endless ambition. It was those as well as many more valuable qualities in these times of war that earned him the position after the tragic disappearance of the Third Kazekage, the greatest warrior the village had ever had protecting it.

The Fourth and his village elders had created an exceptionally cunning plot lately and he was still waiting to hear the result of the operation, drinking said tea in something akin to apprehensiveness. For some reason, he had a bad feeling about the outcome of the plan. There were too many variables, too many uncertainties, too many risks for failure. If the plan failed and only alarmed the Leaf of the Sand's wavering loyalty, the situation could get much worse than it already was. There were so many ways things could go completely wrong.

And yet none of those countless ways that the Fourth anticipated to hear came even close to what really happened.

When he heard about the procession of things, he had to summon every ounce of control that he had in his body not to scream at his underlings for not taking better care of the Hyuuga girl or for their failure to match up with his idiotic nuisance of a son. But there wasn't really much to say, was there? How could one expect of a five-year-old girly to be capable of breaking out of her high-security prison cell? Who was supposed to foresee that she'd be stupid enough to enter into Gaara's room and—more importantly—that she'd actually earn the boy's trust instead of getting herself killed right off the bat?

For all the villagers knew, Shukaku's vessel had proved to be mentally unstable on more than one occasion, going on a blind rampage and annihilating everything in the vicinity several times already for his rather short existence. He was as antisocial—what with his lack of experience and everyone's reluctance to change that fact for fear of their imminent demise—as they got so why had he let this pathetic, sniveling little girl into his room, into his life?

It was an event truly impossible to predict so he had no adequate reason to vent his frustrations on his subordinates, however pleasing it would be to him, and—while many would probably argue such a point—the Fourth was a good Kage (if not very much of a father to his three offspring).

He set his tea cup down impassively, looking at the smoothness of its surface and his own concerned façade in its reflection. He released a restrained sigh and closed his dark eyes thoughtfully in silent contemplation.

"How should we proceed, Yondaime-sama?" One of the gathered men urged him to wakefulness again but instead the Fourth just creased his brow further.

This was a delicate matter and had to be dealt with accordingly—the Kage realized that perfectly well but what was there left to do? If he tried to pry the girl out of his son's grasp, it wouldn't end well for anyone—especially for those he sent to take her away from Gaara. There wasn't a Jounin alive in the village yet who could stand on equal ground with Shukaku's vessel. Just sitting and waiting it out didn't sound like a good alternative either, as his son could go berserk any minute and destroy what little chance the Sand had of gathering information on the Hyuuga clan Bloodline Limit. Things were going downhill too fast too soon.

"Yashamaru!" the ruler called out to the small crowd of men in his tea room and a rather short, sandy-blond young shinobi stepped up and kneeled in respect in front of him. "Your task has just changed. You are to observe my son and his girl toy at all times—see to it she stays alive long enough for us to come up with a plan to free her of his attention."

The youth's jaw squared visibly, making the rest of the Jounins around him glare daggers at his plain rudeness, but he bowed obediently regardless of his obvious feelings in the matter.

"Yes, sire," he muttered silently as he bowed so low his forehead touched the straw-like carpet of the floor.

"Observe their actions and find weak spots which we can exploit in a time of need." The man took another tentative sip of his refreshing green tea while the other mumbled through clenched teeth.

"Certainly, Kazekage-sama."

"And try to be a good actor with them, will you? Make them believe they have developed a bond with you or something—so when it's unveiled for the lie that it is, they will be vulnerable." The robes rustled when the Kage brandished his arm disinterestedly.

"As you wish, sire," the young man going by the name of Yashamaru agreed begrudgingly. The head of the village seemed unfazed by his ill-concealed malign.

"Very well then. You're dismissed."

"Yes, Kazekage-sama." With one last bow, Yashamaru was gone, leaving a room of bustling Jounins in his wake.

"Kazekage-sama!" one of the nameless faces exclaimed in protest afterwards. "You shouldn't trust Yashamaru with such important matters to the village. You know his feelings for you and his dubious loyalty! He cannot be trusted!"

Chuckling softly, the ruler set his cup down on the tea table in front of him calmly, looking up at his devoted followers.

"It is obvious to me that you do not understand the nature of my relationship to Yashamaru, Captain Yuura."

"But what is there to—" A raised hand prevented him from finishing his sentence.

"It is certainly obvious that the boy bears me a grudge in his heart that he is more than unwilling to let go of—and I daresay righteously so." The Fourth clasped his hands in his lap in a well-mannered fashion. "But it is exactly that hate for me that makes him obey my every command so devotedly, so desperately yearning for recognition. The closer he gets to me, the more pleased he keeps me, the bigger the possibility that I show him an opening for an attack. Surely, the boy is cunning, secretive and quite the actor around everyone, hiding his real intentions and feelings behind countless masks that are nearly impossible to peel all off but exactly those qualities make him an excellent shinobi as well as a valuable cadre. In fact, he could be even as loyal as you, Captain Yuura, if just to find a decent spot to stab with a knife in my back."

After his elaborate explanation that had a few unseasoned ninja that weren't used to his distorted thinking leave their mouths drop agape, the Fourth straightened his back and his face was adorned with a sly grin that could have made Satan himself shudder in disgust.

"So, you see, gentlemen—there isn't anyone else I'd trust in such a dire situation than dearest brother-in-law Yashamaru." His smile was highly unnerving and every person present in the room yearned for a change of subject that would surely wipe that expression off his face. "What's the situation with Konohagakure, Baki?"

The addressed Jounin started at the sudden change of subject but gathered his wits quick enough before his weakness was noted by all his peers.

"The Hyuuga clan is in a state of chaos at present, sire. They don't have a clue who might have attacked them and kidnapped their successor with such precision. We are still clear of suspicion and the Hyuuga still haven't come to a solution to their problem. Should we send a word for our wants, sire?"

The Kazekage rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"No, leave them deal with it for a while. In the time it should take them to come to a decision, we should have adjusted to the situation here as well and figured exactly what we want from them. Dismissed."

In a cloud of smoke and sand, the Fourth was left to his musings on his own again, mulling over his next move.

* * *

"Are you calm now?" Gaara demanded none too gently, making his counterpart wince at his tone and clutch the teddy bear closer to her young bosom. 

"U-uh huh…" she mumbled almost indiscernibly, burying her face in the stuffed toy.

"You're not going to burst in tears anymore? No more tantrums?" He made sure suspiciously, not completely convinced by her uncertain affirmation.

"N-…no…" she murmured again, barely above a whisper. She was suddenly very shy of her outburst, ashamed to meet Gaara's gaze again, afraid to see the disapproval surely written all over his face at her display of weakness. She was a kunoichi, and kunoichi had to be strong, regardless of their age, her father had always told her. But she was a disgrace—she couldn't control herself and her feelings and more often than not they got the better of her, like a little while ago. How completely unbecoming of an heiress of her stature she had behaved!

"Good," the boy deduced with new sternness in his voice that wasn't there a moment ago and she heard his clothes rustle by her as he stood up, drawing his absolutely unremarkable height-wise frame up completely, walking away from her. She lifted her gaze half-curiously from the toy's body to spy on her friend's movements. "We can continue where we left off then." They were rather interrupted but he preferred to ignore the whole ordeal, like he usually did. It was easier acting as if something never happened rather than breaking your head trying to comprehend why the hell his father wished Hinata harm, much like he chose not to contemplate why exactly there were so many villagers and shinobi that bore him ill-will.

So, with practiced ease, Gaara plopped himself down in front of his building blocks and continued putting more and more atop of the last under Hinata's intense—or as intense as a five-year-old girl who felt completely out of place in her current surroundings—scrutiny. At last, the little kunoichi shook herself out of her stupor and slowly scooted next to Gaara to observe his building process closely.

"D-didn't… didn't i-it b-bother you a-…at all?" She queried shakily, grasping the reassuring toy closer to her small body. At the boy's nonchalant snort of incomprehension, she elaborated uncertainly. "D-…didn't w-what h-happened… j-just now b-bother you… at all?" She swallowed, her throat still dry from all her crying. "H-how can y-you… b-be so… so calm after… after t-that… k-kind of thing h-happened?"

He didn't even look at her. He was strangely distant even when he was within her arm's reach. She couldn't understand why he was being so odd with her. She just wanted to know was all. She couldn't understand his nonchalance whatsoever.

"If I was as shaken up as you every time it happened, I would have gone crazy by now." He shrugged noncommittally, reinforcing the base of his structure, stunningly perceptive for a boy his age. "You'll get used to it too in time."

At the revelation that this was not the first time some unknown shinobi stormed his room for no apparent reason, Hinata felt a new wave of childish sympathy for the little guy next to her. Adults could be so terribly mean at times she almost found herself thinking bad things about them. And she was supposed to be raised too well to resort to such pettiness like calling—or thinking, as was the case—people names, if even just to her own mind.

"Th-this… isn't t-the f-first time… t-this h-happens… to you?" He made it a point not to look at her face because he was sure he'd see unbridled pity and sympathy in them—she was too sincere in all she did not to have her feelings written all over her face like that—and he wasn't sure if he wanted to see those. He'd never been on the receiving end of them, but wasn't all eager to be either. He'd lived through quite a lot for his few years but he was convinced that the last thing a man—like him—needed was pity.

"No," he told her in a clipped tone that didn't leave room for any further questioning on the matter.

So she didn't. Instead, she sulked over it. She was sad that those mean people could treat such a careful and—if not a little cold—gentle boy like Gaara in such a manner. Surely, she had deserved it—been a bad girl, disobeyed her father deliberately on several occasions and had earned his disapproval, but what could have Gaara done to anyone to make them assault him the way they have assaulted her? Nothing sprung to mind. She was once more overcome by the unfairness of it all, of the ugliness of them all, of their twisted-ness and rudeness towards someone who she heard they turned to with a most respectable honorific. What insufferable hypocrites they were!

"You're not playing." It was her companion's cool and collected voice that jolted her back to reality with a start. When she met his marine eyes, they narrowed beneath his hairless eye brows. "And you look like an old lady."

Hinata rubbed roughly her small fists against her eyes, trying to rid them of their drowsiness.

"I-… I'm sorry. I'm… j-just a little… t-tired." She told him while adorably rubbing her eyes.

"You shouldn't apologize about everything. There's nothing to feel sorry for in being worn down," he informed her sternly with those overly focused gaze of his boring directly into her. Unable to hold it anymore, she looked away from him, ashamed.

"I-I'm sorry!" she sputtered hastily and upon realization covered her traitorous mouth with the hand that wasn't busy holding the teddy to her.

She looked up, bracing herself to see the disapproving stare—one that she was so familiar seeing in her dearest father's eyes—in her new friend's eye but instead she was met only with an eye brow raised in slight amusement. He then shook his head in a manner that conveyed that he knew perfectly well at that point that arguing her ways was more than hopeless, and made a move to collect his toys into a semi-tidy pile in one corner of the room. She watched him with as much interest as her drooping eyes would allow her while he took out a solitary futon out of a build-in wardrobe.

"It's not like you did anything to get tired anyway…" he muttered under his breath and for some reason she felt the urge to explain herself. She didn't want to look like a weakling—the weakling she actually was, as a matter of fact, but he didn't need to know that, did he now—to her precious new friend and protector.

"I-I hadn't had a-any r-rest… w-when I was k-…kidnapped! A-and I… I haven't slept w-… well since! S-so… s-so it's n-…normal to be t-tired!" She insisted with urgency in her voice that made him eye her dubiously but regardless, he said nothing about her outburst. Girls were hard to understand, he'd heard his older brother say about their older sister after one of their countless fights. Naturally, Gaara hadn't been a part of it but they had failed to notice his presence barging in on them so he had made full use of his welcome there. He chose not to tell her that the closest village to theirs was on a half a day trip so it was impossible for her to have been up the entire time—it was just too mean to burst her bubble like that.

A look of recognition—though barely perceptible—crossed his features for a brief moment.

"So you're sleepy… huh?" He sat on the side of the futon, looking much older than his actual age with all the ruefulness in his clear marine orbs. Hinata blinked rapidly with her girlishly large eye lashes.

"A-aren't… you?" she asked cautiously, subconsciously realizing—or maybe not—that she was walking on thin ice there.

"I don't sleep." The reply came almost instantly, snappily, as if suggesting otherwise insulted him.

Hinata flinched back visibly at the tone he was using with her but he paid her no heed. He was too immersed in a world of his own to notice anything in his surroundings. She bit her bottom lip guiltily, looking down at the teddy in her arms. He was being so nice to her and all she managed to do was make him sad and distant. No wonder she had no friends. She wasn't fit to be a friend to anyone, much less to Gaara-kun.

"Here, you can take my futon since I never use it anyway." He pointed at the bed that he had made with staggering precision for someone who made no use of such a piece of furniture. When she made no move to acknowledge his kind offer—not that he had a real grasp of what the word meant but surely letting someone use your things as they pleased classified as "kind" in other—ordinary—people's books, right?—he scowled his disapproval. "What's wrong with it?"

"Wh-…why sh-should there b-be… s-something wrong… with it?" she didn't understand. Gaara's frown only deepened but didn't manage to crease his perfectly fine forehead.

Spotless, scar-less, flawless skin—there wasn't a trace of all the pain and suffering he must have surely lived through if he was used to being manhandled by the Jounin around here. And somehow, that just made her sad—really, really sad—that no one could see the traces of his anguish because it didn't take on any physical shape yet the scars that marred his inside were probably much uglier and deeper than any physical scar could ever be. Wasn't it terribly sad, just thinking about it?

"You're not taking it," he once more pointed out the obvious, making her look down at her clasped fingers around the teddy bear that looked so adorably up at her with its lifeless buttons of eyes.

"It's-it's perfect!" she squeaked out and clambered over the sheets hastily, not bothering to shed herself of her clothing—mainly because she was quite self-conscious about doing so in front of anyone that wasn't her personal maid at the mansion and even more so because that person happened to be of the opposite gender since her father had always taught her—even though her too young mind failed to wrap itself around the meaning behind it—that it was inappropriate undress herself when there were boys around.

In a matter of seconds she was underneath the warm covers, bear still tightly clutched to her as she laid her head contentedly on her pillow. Her droopy eye lids closed in bliss as she felt the stiffness in her body slowly but certainly ease.

"Th-this is… so great!" Her eyes snapped open in the span of an inhale and she was up in a sitting position, bowing respectfully to her host repeatedly with all her inbred courtesy and good manners—if a little late. "I-I'm sorry! I-I forgot my m-manners i-in my h-haste!" She bowed again. "Thank you h-humbly… f-for y-you g-generous… h-hospitality t-to me!"

Gaara could only look on as this girl, who was the same age as he was yet they differed so greatly. Where did she come from and how could she be so polite with someone who was on the same eye level as her? It was beyond him. Yet he didn't say anything. She looked comfortable, hiding behind her routines like that, searching for some familiarity in this village that was completely foreign to her and so far had shown her nothing good.

She stopped her frantic bowing after a while and he idly wondered if she was finally content and calmed herself enough to go to sleep at last. She peeked at him from beneath her dark eye brows with her wide innocent eyes pupil-less and white as snow. He met her gaze with well hidden curiosity of his own.

"Wh-what will… y-you do… G-Gaara-kun?"

"I told you I don't sleep," he said with a roll of his black-rimmed eyes.

"That's… that's not what I meant." She covered her legs with the soft covers once more, round opals boring into him once more. There was a determined shine in them and if he had learnt anything about this girl for the evening that they have shared in each other's company, it was that when she lost her stutter, it meant that it was a really serious matter to her. Either that or it meant that she wasn't thinking—there was no other explanation.

He turned his dark red-haired head towards the farthest wall from them.

"I'm sick of this room so I'll probably go out for a little while, to take a walk. Nights in Suna can be really long and exhausting to endure." He heaved a sigh and got ready to march for the door when something gripped at the back of his shirt. He spied a glance at the tiny fist that was clutching his top and then to the person it belonged to.

The boy was partially taken aback by the fresh torrent of tears that brimmed in those sincere to Kami opalescent orbs as well as the desperation and fear that bred in them.

"P-please… d-don't leave…"

For a moment he considered telling her off. There wasn't anything he could do in the room while she was asleep and he meant it—eleven hours of darkness wasn't something he daily looked forward to. Eleven hours during which unburdened people could take a rest in dreamland but once more he had to prove just how different he was even with such a simple thing as his perpetual insomnia. Well, it wasn't as if he _couldn't_ sleep—he just really didn't _want_ to. Every time his mind drifted off, there was this hideous shadow inside him that laughed with a horrible voice, muttering unintelligible promises of his imminent demise as well as that of the whole village and its inhabitants. It spoke of horrid things and enforced images in his mind's eye that haunted his vision even when he was awake. He was better off not sleeping at all if he had to face that kind of torture in his slumber.

But then he realized how much more she meant by that. She was afraid. Just as afraid as he was to fall asleep alone. She was afraid in the same way that she wasn't sure what she'd wake up to next time her eyes opened. She was afraid to let her guard down in such an unfriendly community as the Sand, where she didn't have anyone, where she couldn't trust anyone enough to sleep in the presence of.

Yet she trusted him, asked him to stay around her to give her enough comfort to nod off. They were in the middle of a war but she so easily gave her trust to the son of the man who ordered her kidnapping—although he didn't exactly expect her to _know_ that kind of thing nor did he plan on telling her himself. She was so naïve and innocent that it could probably draw tears in someone more weak-minded than him.

But to Gaara, Hinata was just odd. Odd in so many ways he already lost count. Yet she managed to touch a nerve somewhere in him—she managed to stir something that he had thought he didn't possess, that he was made to believe that he was born without. He had always thought of himself as vastly different from everyone else around, as incapable of being part of a normal relationship. He'd always believed that he had grown out of this that now made him painfully aware of its presence within him—humanity. Despite the elaborate attempts of those around him who made him believe he was a monster, that he couldn't be a part of anything that involved normal people, there was still something in him that could be friendly, that could understand the need for company, that was compelled to stay when asked to.

Because he, himself, desperately needed a constant soothing presence in his life as well. Because he needed something, _someone_, to anchor him to this world, to stop his mind from wandering this world pointlessly, to give him a reason to exist, if just for a little while.

So he sat by her side on the futon while she curled sideways in a fetal position, teddy bear tightly embraced in her small fingers. He rested his back against the wall just behind her pillow and exhaled heavily. There was surely a long and boring night ahead of him but he'd made a promise to her. A man did not go back on his word—especially not him, especially not to someone who suddenly felt so strangely special for a person he'd just met. He didn't understand bonds at all so there was no way he could even consider that their meeting could have held much more meaning than he would credit it to.

She cuddled up by his side snugly, tired eyes once again shielded behind creamy white lids. He looked at her calm form for a while, feeling her relaxation seep into him as well. When he thought she was asleep, she did the most startling thing to prove him wrong—her tiny fingers covered the hand that was holding part of his weight propped up against the wall. His eyes snapped to her immediately, alarmed at the sudden contact and almost expecting her to be shifting in her sleep but instead he saw her kind gaze looking up at him from in between the thick feminine lashes in a way that made his chest constrict in that playfully teasing way that he had come to look forward to feeling.

She smiled blissfully at him as she said in the smallest of voice, in less than a whisper, "Thank you, Gaara-kun."

She'd thanked and excused the entire day but somehow, this time it felt completely different. While she was the incarnation of sincerity the entire time, he couldn't help but feel like this was the first time she'd spoken from her heart to him. It made his body go through a confusing torrent of emotions which battled for dominance over him and none of which he could put a name to.

But when Hinata finally hid her opalescent gaze behind her small lids for the last time that night and her fingers weaved boldly with his in a gesture that sought security in the most heart-meltingly adorable way, he couldn't help but squeeze her hand lightly back in reassurance that he was indeed staying the night by her side, however long it may be. He didn't care if it was happiness that he felt or how confusing it was to experience all those new emotions because there was a girl within an arm's reach that was just as puzzled as he was, just as afraid and a foreigner to the world as he was. Her fingers were cold as his were, but the remainders of the smile etched onto her sleeping features made her grip much warmer than any physical temperature could have reached.

Warm enough to melt some of the defenses that he had built up to keep anyone out of his life.

It was truly odd, how two people so different could yet be so much alike. It was mystifying how they met and how well they got along, despite the staggering difference in their characters and upbringing. It was most wondrous how in the midst of times of war, of blood spilling, of ruthless carnage and betrayal where you can rely on no one but yourself, two lonely souls found solace in each other's presence, in one another's existence.

It was a kind of paradise that Gaara would have never hoped existed, much less that it would allow him—the cursed one, the abominable and unlovable one—entry into it. It was a kind of paradise that he could surrender to.

The calm of the night relaxed his senses, the coldness of the wall worked the knots of his muscles and his mind went blank enough to allow him some level of rest, of absolution if even just for a little while. He was not afraid of his inner demons because the radiance of the little girl, even in her deep sleep, was much greater than any evil on this or any other world, he was naively sure.

And, shrouded by the darkness of the night, an eye was peering at the resting pair of younglings from the crack of the slightly open door with a promising, calculating gaze of a lurking beast stalking his prey.

* * *

_Bottom AN: __I have no excuse for my tardiness but I decided __**not to sacrifice quality over quantity**__. I thought that you'd support that kind of thing if the chapter came out well enough. I'm not as pleased with it as I would have liked—definitely not as much as with the previous one—but that's for you to decide. As for me, I can't wait to get to the real action as this is just something of a prologue—yes, quite an elaborate one, isn't it—but we have one more chapter to go before we can do that. I hope you don't mind the chibi action too much and that it isn't way too sappy. Keep in mind that they're still kids and that they haven't yet been hardened by the terribleness that is real life. We're to see some of that in next chapter though, but I'm not telling you anything more, ku ku ku._

_Oh, and, __**feel yourself warned**__ when I say this; I seem to lack understanding for the word "brief". I don't do brief, I can't do brief. I like to interact with my characters and to show different sides of them so a reader can understand why I like them so much. So… Yeah… From now on it may seem at times like it doesn't have as much action or plot development but I have the good intention of having everything holding some meaning, or at least to the character development. It would make me sad if someone stops supporting me just because I can't keep myself from going all out when it comes to development, but I'd rather you be warned than blame me later on. It's just the way I am._

_And, by the way, I appreciate constructiveness and helpful __comments very much__**. If you have something that you want to see more of, something that you justly believe shouldn't be there, any thoughts, complaints or other comments, feel free to tell me what it is**__ and why it should or shouldn't be the way you want it to. You just might see things happening the way you want to later on. (winks)_

_Sorry for the rant and thanks for the attention once more! I hope you enjoyed the new installment to this story as much as I enjoyed writing it!_


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